Hit & Run as Best Group Blog?

If you say "aye," then vote for us in the Weblog Awards.

The polls close December 15 and you can vote once a day. As they say in many parts of Chicago, vote early and vote often, especially if you're dead.

We are currently if fifth place and getting our collective group blog ass kicked by the likes of Talking Points Memo Cafe and Redstate, so for Zod's sake, let's at least make it a game here.

Cast a ballot here.

Comments

[JD]

OK, OK, I went and voted; happy now? Like democracy ever proved anything, anyway.

One annoying sidenote: "Polls require Macromedia Flash version 7 (or higher), which should be automatically installed if you do not have it." Why, in the name of all that is good and right? You don't need Flash to run a poll!

[Ken Shultz]

Normally I'd take such things with a grain of salt, but it really will bug the hell out of me if we lose to Red State--Red State just sucks! ...I mean it's a pinch your nose and phew kinda stinks!

...I read this piece over there once. As I recall, it was about how hillbillies aren't like red necks, how red necks are different from trash, and why they all like President Bush and NASCAR.

I can get as much wisdom listening to the boring, old, dried up and divorced drunks in any one of a million dives all over this great land. ...Compared to Hit & Run? ...Are you kidding?

[Warren]

Is there some sort of unwritten code that prevents blogs from linking to one another? I looked in on some of the competition and remembered last year when I did. I posted a few comments here and there. It was unsatisfying because I was alone trying to support my position and some of the rebuttals were overly dimwitted. I think it would be fun though, if we sort of dropped in on our neighbors from time to time.

I HATE when a post links to NRO because it makes my blood boil and then my head explodes (and I don?t need to tell you how painful it is regenerating a whole head) since you can?t even leave a comment to let them know what breed of jackass they are at the moment. But I think it would be cool if several H&R regulars ?sat in? on some other group-think once in a while. Likewise it would be a hoot if a group of others braved the lions den here. I seem to remember this happening a few times in the past.

[Jeff P.]

"group blog" sounds filthy. Either as a noun ("I attended a group blog last night.") or a verb (I've been group blogged!").

[Lowdog]

Warren, I've got a friend who frequents Daily Kos, and I was going to suggest that if he came over here and at least lurked, I'd return the favour. What do you think?

Oh, and I did vote yesterday. Apparently that was less than 24 hours ago because it wouldn't let me vote again. I'll try again later.

[The Wine Commonsewer]

I tried voting twice by using a different browser. No luck. I tried voting twice by cleaning out my cookies and my cache. No luck there either. Pretty sad tale when you can't cheat.

[MP]

Blogging about this once was cute. Blogging about this twice is annoying.

[The Wine Commonsewer]

I'm also on the pity potty & pouting because nobody nominated TWC. Especially sad because had I known about these awards I would have had the foresight to nominate myself.

[Rimfax]

The Flash requirement pretty much excludes me from voting with my Linux box. Anyone else have any luck running Flash on a Linux box on a Firefox browser?

[linguist]

I voted yesterday and now I can't vote again today. False advertising.

That ticked me off, so I cast a write-in for H & R as best Religious blog!
Just kidding.

[smacky]

I like Warren's idea. I would be all for earnestly "trolling" a crappier blog's site with a few of my fellow Hit and Runners. I'd especially like it if I were trolling with some of the more amusing Hit and Runners...I can just picture the ensuing shenangigans now. *salivating*

[Ed]

Sorry. Too much like incest. Is that the word? No, wait: bestiality. That's it.

[smacky]

er, I meant "shenanigans"

[Brian Courts]

Well, really there's no shame in losing a popularity contest (or worse a contest to see who can stuff the ballot box best). If the masses agreed that H&R was best it probably wouldn't be. 🙂

And TWC, try changing your IP address.

[Ken Shultz]

I would be all for earnestly "trolling" a crappier blog's site with a few of my fellow Hit and Runners. I'd especially like it if I were trolling with some of the more amusing Hit and Runners...I can just picture the ensuing shenangigans now. *salivating*

I suggested this over at--what do we call it, grylliade or O RLY? I didn't get much of a response.

...actually, some people laughed at me. One person kicked me and another one spit on me. ...It was very upsetting.

[Warren]

Lowdog,
That's a good idea but not what I'm talking about. I was thinking one of the Reason staffers would post something like

Over at LoonyBlog.com there trying to decide whether the windfall tax on petroleum providers should be 15% or 20%. Who here thinks it should be 0%?

And then we'd click over and start posting comments. The first one of us would include a header saying that our blog linked their blog and the rest of us would just say "Hit and Runn-er here and I think blah blah blah"

Like wise it would be cool if (once in a while) several patrons of RightWingnut.com showed up here and had to deal with the fact that the opposition doesn't dry up and blow away even after they "prove" that God wants what they want.

[smacky]

You know, I think there might be a problem with their website. When I voted, I believe I was number 300 for Hit and Run. Then I hit "back" on my browser and returned to their site, which registered Hit and Run with only 299 votes. I hit "refresh" and it still said only 299. Or does my vote not count?

Now it says "307"....whateva.

[Warren]

I do remember doing this once. I forget what other blog it was or what it was about. But it was great fun. The folks at the other end were all freaking out. ?How can you question our basic assumptions like that? Everyone knows it?s true. Who are these guys?? And then they were like ?OMG they?re fricking ?LIBERTARIANS?!!! and then ?WTF is a libertarian? and then some of then posted some really wacky definitions of libertarianism and we posted corrections and provided some helpful links to CATO and lp.org and what not.

It felt better than just sitting around moaning over the latest dildo that we?re being raped by (don?t get me wrong, I?m very big on rape moaning) but it felt good to introduce the ?free minds, free markets? mindset to folks who never could have imagined such a thing.

[The Wine Commonsewer]

annoying

Not that annoying. Even though there are almost two million people a month coming to the webpage, I would imagine that there is a core of only a few hundred to a few thousand people lurking on a daily basis. Far fewer who actually comment.

To reach the rest of that sporadic and intermittent audience, Nick needs to keep selling. If H & R was my blog, I'd be ragging on it every day.

[Lowdog]

Warren - gotcha...sounds like a great idea.

[Mad Scientist]

I can't believe a bunch of libertarians are trying to game a popularity contest. I like being the underdog.

[Warren]

TWC,
Right. It?s like "Doc, it hurts when I do this". He doesn?t have to post a comment every day and one more uninteresting thread can?t really be that annoying. But we should support our blog by voting every day and who would remember if we weren?t reminded?

[Jason Ligon]

I used to go to Yglesias, DeLong, and Drum's blogs semi regularly. Not so much these days.

[poco]

We LIKE getting (at best) 4%!

[Dan Koffler]

Odd that H&R is the only nominee tied to a print magazine. No love for the Corner? Did the gatekeepers decide (correctly) that it was just too excruciatingly awful to get a nod?

[Gonzoide]

I love the content of this blog and I've thrown my vote away twice in symbolic support; kind of like when I go to the real polls;) The Reason staff ought to be commended publicly but flying under the radar has its advantages -- fewer trolls and flame wars come to mind. Kudos to the thoughtful and frequent contributors who make the "comments" such a terrific read. Ruthless, Thoreau, Akira, etc. are intimadatingly sharp. I would post more often but feel I'm intellectually outclassed. BTW, has anyone else developed a crush on Jennifer? I don't care what she looks like, she will remain my fantasy minarchist hottie.

I do have a few minor complaints, though. Can someone train the squirrels to let people revise their posts? Or can everyone just let their typos stand? We know what you meant, no need to show us you really do know how to spell, or that you didn't submit the same comment three times. Sheesh! Also, it would be great if the comments were arranged in multiple threads. Finally, how about a general message board where readers can start their own threads?

[libs]

If libertarians can't take losing an election, what can they do?

[Warren]

Dan,
Yeah I don?t know why TPTB didn?t include it, but as far as I?m concerned if you don?t allow comments you are just farting in an echo chamber.

[Yogi]

I think we moved into 4th place and closing in fast on 3rd place!

[Number 6]

Anyone else have any luck running Flash on a Linux box on a Firefox browser?

Yes. I think I installed it via a tarball from Macromedia. For debian-based systems, just download, navigate to the file in the terminal, and use dpkg-i.

[Yogi]

I can't believe a bunch of libertarians are trying to game a popularity contest. I like being the underdog.

Yes, but I also like winning every once in a while. That's the difference between an underdog and a perpetual loser.

[Karl]

RimFax -
"The Flash requirement pretty much excludes me from voting with my Linux box. Anyone else have any luck running Flash on a Linux box on a Firefox browser?"

No problems here, running FC-3 + Firefox 1.0.7. You may have a problem if your on a 64-bit platform - if that's the case, you'll have to remove the 64-bit firefox and install the 32-bit version.
With FC (and all the Redhat derivatives), you can genrarlly just do a 'yum install flash-plugin' as lots of people have packaged it for RH derivatives; alternatively, find the flash-plugin rpm on the net and install it. Gentoo would just be 'emerge flash-plugin'. I'm not familiar with other linux flavors, but it should be relatively easy. The flash-plugin just provides libflashplayer.so, so you can probably download that from http://www.macromedia.com and run their installer (basically, you just need to put libflashplayer.so in /usr/lib/flash-plugin/ and link it from /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins and/or /usr/lib/firefox-1.x.x/plugins).

[Yogi]

3rd place and eyeing the top spot now...

[Number 6]

Karl- I forgot to tell him about making a dymanic link. Good point. Anyway, since this site registers pretty high on the geek-o-meter as it is, maybe we should have a debian vs. RH/Fedora flame war. Bonus points if we get a Fre BSD user in here.

[Rimfax]

...rape moaning...

Warren, In the spirit of Saint Beavis and Saint Butthead I have heretofore dedicated my life to the immortalization of "rape moaning" as a new word to the English language.

re: Flash

Thanks to #6 and Karl for the info. If I get some free time, I may try to reinstall Flash.

[JD]

I dunno about going to other blogs, or inviting others here. Every time I read something like LGF or Daily Kos, my blood pressure goes up precipitously. Heck, even my ISP's internal political newsgroup might as well be Daily Kos, plus the one local Republican who I guess is just pigheaded. (For example, there was one post today in which a guy claimed that Bush wants to "destroy the government", seriously, AFAICT.) I come here to be with my kind, where at least I don't have to argue over whether one plus one really is two or not.

[JD]

number six: "debian vs. RH/Fedora flame war"

Bah! Slackware forever, I say! I have to use RHEL at work; what a misbegotten pile of crap that is.

[Warren]

Rimfax,
Please try to preserve the definition

Rape-moaning: The mildly satisfying response to the intensely painful experience of being raped.

[independent worm]

Smacky wrote:

I'd especially like it if I were trolling with some of the more amusing Hit and Runners...I can just picture the ensuing shenangigans now. *salivating*

er, I meant "shenanigans"

I swear to God I'm going to pistol whip the next guy who says "Shenanigans".

[Warren]

Interesting fact I uncovered. Last year H&R finished in 8th place (because we didn?t get daily reminders?) This year only three off last years nominees have been re-nominated (Winds of Change and Blogcritic being the other two) Even last years winner (The Volokh Conspiracy) didn?t get a nod this year.

This alone must be worth something.

[Number 6]

JD-I've heard good things about Slackware, but I've also heard that the learning curve is even higher than with other distros. Personally, I use Ubuntu, and am happy with it. I tried Xandros for a while, but didn't care for KDE, and switched back when the new version of Ubuntu came out. I supose we could also do the great KDE/GNOME debate. I also know a guy who shuns GUIs completely, which strikes me as...well, odd.

[Shem]

Like wise it would be cool if (once in a while) several patrons of RightWingnut.com showed up here and had to deal with the fact that the opposition doesn't dry up and blow away even after they "prove" that God wants what they want.

You mean like what happens every fucking time NRO either gets linked or links to H&R? The novelty wears off fairly quickly, given that they don't "deal with the fact that the opposition...doesn't blow away." They just get loud and obnoxious and make stupid assumptions that involve their misconceptions about what libertarians are.

[just another lurker]

Okay, I whored myself for H&R. Even to the point of installing Flash. You guys better show a LITTLE more impressive a turnout than Badnarick.

Wow, SoundPolitics is in the group category? That's really a local blog, Seattle/Washington. Hard to believe, for several reasons.

[just another lurker]

Okay, I whored myself for H&R. Even to the point of installing Flash. You guys better show a LITTLE more impressive a turnout than Badnarick.

Wow, SoundPolitics is in the group category? That's really a local blog, Seattle/Washington. Hard to believe, for several reasons.

[just another lurker]

Sorry about the doublepost. Damn this server.

[Warren]

Shem,
I can see your point. However, I don't remember the last time NROers showed up here, and like I said I HATE links to NRO in part because they won't let me comment (but mostly because they are asshats)

I can definitely see this blowing up in our face, but I still think its worth trying. Just one post a week say to another blog. I don't see any practical way of inviting others here but if they come I don't see any way to keep them out either. And like I said, it's fun (if you don't do it all the time)

The thing is, we are soooooo the most Reasonable people on the internet. The discussion here is way above the level you find anywhere else. I'd like to pick up some of the more intelligent folks hanging out elsewhere on account of they don't know we exist.

[smacky]

I swear to God I'm going to pistol whip the next guy who says "Shenanigans".

Why!? What's wrong with my word choice? Would "tomfoolery" be more acceptable to you? Not that I care. hrmph.

[Stevo Darkly]

Freaky, smacky! I was just about to ask IW what his stand on "tomfoolery" was if he didn't like "shenanigans," but then the server died on me.

PS: Test. Test.

[Stevo Darkly]

Now, where was I ....?

Oh boy, two more hours and I can vote again!

Blogging about this once was cute. Blogging about this twice is annoying.

We must have daily reminders. It is our way.

Re: Swarming upon another, lesser blog.

I am intrigued by this idea. It appeals to my inner buccaneer. "Prepare to be boarded, ye scurvy dogs! We're the Hit 'n' Runners -- the Terrors of the Cyber Seas!"

Oh, "Aaaaaar!"

I suggested this over at--what do we call it, grylliade or O RLY? I didn't get much of a response.

Oh, speaking of "not much response to suggestions"... Last night I lurked over at Grylliade's "What's in a name?" thread and sent a note to Viking Moose and smacky suggesting that the other place be called "Beyond the Bounds of Reason."

VM responded positively but nobody passed it on to the rest of the other forum for consideration, apparently. I guess they either really didn't like the suggestion or were just too "busy" today with so-called "work."

But I'm not bitter.

[mediageek]

"I swear to God I'm going to pistol whip the next guy who says "Shenanigans"."

Hey, Farva, what's that restaurant you like? The one with the fried mozerella sticks and all the goofy shit on the walls?

[smacky]

Oh, speaking of "not much response to suggestions"... Last night I lurked over at Grylliade's "What's in a name?" thread and sent a note to Viking Moose and smacky suggesting that the other place be called "Beyond the Bounds of Reason."

VM responded positively but nobody passed it on to the rest of the other forum for consideration, apparently. I guess they either really didn't like the suggestion or were just too "busy" today with so-called "work."

But I'm not bitter.

Oh, cry me a river, Justin Timberlake. 🙂

Get an account on there already and post your own jokes! It's already hard enough for me to ingratiate myself to other posters here without appearing to be passing off *your* jokes (which are actually good) as my own (which are usually doubleplusungood).

FWIW, I thought your suggestion was funny. Will you forgive me for not answering your email? (I swear Ike Turner won't do it again, baby!)

[Shem]

We passed RedState, at least.

[Shem]

Hey, Farva, what's that restaurant you like? The one with the fried mozerella sticks and all the goofy shit on the walls?

You mean Shenanigans?

[smacky]

Bring in the gimp!

[JD]

Number 6 - Slackware is very much a hands-on, nuts-and-bolts kind of distro; you are expected to edit text files to configure stuff, because that is the Unix Way. This does make it a little intimidating to the novice, but when you know how to do something, you really know it, as opposed to "I just know how to click stuff in the GUI, and Then Magic Happens." I've been hearing of a lot of Ubuntu users lately; next time I have a spare machine, I may give it a shot.

Damn it, even our distro wars are too polite around here.

[Mad Scientist]

OK, I voted 4 times. I would have done more but I ran out of Windows machines and I refuse to load a GUI onto my Gentoo Linux boxes. Can I have my decoder ring back now?

[Eric the .5b]

It's kinda silly for me to vote, as the only other one of those blogs I read is PostSecret, but hey, one for H&R.

[Shawn Smith]

Damn it, even our distro wars are too polite around here.

I used to use Slackware, simply because it would run on ancient (ca. 1993) hardware. You know--there's nothing like having to find the owner's manual for your monitor, and the box your video card came in, in order to have enough information to correctly set up XFree86.

When my hardware got better (200MHz Pentium w/ 32M RAM and 2G HD) I tried SuSE, simply because it had so much in the distro (1300+ packages), and I've used it ever since.

[Jason Sonenshein]

I tried to vote for Hit and Run, but I got confused by the 2-column ballot and voted for Pat Buchanan instead.

As far as trolling goes, I sometimes like to post comments at Stop the ACLU. I had some fun on this thread.

[Ruthless]

Aye, mateys, let's swarm lesser blogs say I, and run 'em through with shenanigans.
Aaargggh!

[Stevo Darkly]

FWIW, I thought your suggestion was funny. Will you forgive me for not answering your email? (I swear Ike Turner won't do it again, baby!)

Aw, smacky-baby, you know I can't stay mad at you. 'Specially when a friend made me drink Scotch tonight.

And I like your jokes just fine.

[Stevo Darkly]

Hey! It has been well over 24 hours since I last voted, and the Weblog Awards won't let me vote again yet.

Currently H&R is in 3rd place behind Redstate and TPMcafe.

[mediageek]

Gorrammit. We're getting beat out by something called "Think Progress." I haven't the slightest idea what that is, but the name annoys me on general principle.

[Ellie]

Mmmm, PostSecret. It doesn't really feel like a "group blog," though.

[Jadagul]

While we're talking about Flash troubleshooting, has anyone else had trouble getting Flash to work on Firefox? I've downloaded and installed it, but it just won't show the flash objects-they just show up as blank. I'm wondering if this might be a conflict with one of the extensions I've installed, but not sure. Anyone have any ideas? Thanks.

[Shem]

You're not the only one. I also can't get it to run Quicktime. No idea how to fix it, however.

[Stevo Darkly]

I was able to vote again, but not until well after 24 hours had passed.

Hmmm. I wonder if someone else at this ISP voted, or something like that.

[Darkly]

I don't think I meant to say "ISP" -- I think I meant to use a different term, which escapes me at the moment. The location-thing-that-connects-you-to-the-Internet thingabubby.

IP address! That thing.

[Stevo Darkly]

rape-moaning

Um, ick.

[Stevo Darkly]

You know, I think the world would be a happier place if there were less rape-moaning and more rape-constructive criticism.

[Shem]

You know, I think the world would be a happier place if there were less rape-moaning and more rape-constructive criticism.

I don't even wanna think about what that would entail.

[Stevo Darkly]

"Rougher! It's like you're waiting for my permission. If some big black guy were here, he'd pull you off me and show you how it's done!"

I actually received that critique once during a drunken make-out session.

(It actually was kindlier and more encouraging, and somewhat less racist, than it probably comes across in writing.)

(I miss that girl.)

[Sanermind]

Because I'm one of those strange people who values my privacy, I have macromedia flash configured to disallow local persistant storage on my computer (flash cookies, basically).

Thus, attempting to vote gives me:

"Error: Insufficient storage space to run poll."

Which leads one not to really trust the votes, as privacy conscious people are locked out of voting, thus obviously skewing the results! (Obviously, who am I kidding! Virtually no one else cares to avoid being tracked online)...